


Opening Night

by quantumoddity



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Artists, Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Recreational Drug Use, Romance, Starving Artists AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 13:12:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11944953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumoddity/pseuds/quantumoddity
Summary: Philip Hamilton and Georges de Lafayette have been together for years, making their own way, struggling, sacrificing to make their mark on the world, to blow them all away. And now things are looking up.-Part of the Starving Artist Husbands AU





	Opening Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alittlebitoftheuniverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlebitoftheuniverse/gifts).



Philip loved to travel, he’d always known that. He loved new places, he loved seeing the stars in slightly different arrangements that he’d ever seen them before, he loved new smells of the air, for the chatter and words around him to be in a different language than what he was used to, to feel that drifting, dreamy buzz of being somewhere completely new, of having somewhere he’d only ever read about in books, theoretical and imaginary, become real. Like he was the one who’d joined it in a looser, sunnier, more colourful half reality, rather than it coming to him.

He loved taking his poetry to places it seemed to have fit more than it ever had back in New York, back where it had felt weak and watery and insincere anywhere outside the pages of his journal. In the places he went these days, the endless summer it felt like they were chasing, Philip found his words growing and spiralling beyond even his control, into something more beautiful than he could have imagined coming from his own hands. Something that felt like it was describing himself.

Philip knew that was thanks to all this, to the travelling around Europe according to their work and their whims, the way his work and he himself had grown and changed. He was so different from the kid who’d grown up surrounded by concrete and noise, now his restless heart felt more soothed and focused, driven  _ towards  _ something rather than rattling around in his ribcage with no direction. Of course, he missed America, he missed New York, he missed his family so desperately sometimes it felt like he was choking on it. But that was just life. That was a price he was okay with paying, something he could deal with in his low moments and keep it there.

It was like his mama said, when Philip had been fretting and dithering over all of this, whether to choose familiarity, even if it was suffocating, or freedom, even if it meant putting a whole ocean between himself and the warm smile of his Pops, the hugs from his mama that always seemed to come at just the right time, the jokes and tackles from his siblings that had pulled him out of every dark mood he’d ever been in.

Eliza had put her hands on either side of his face, that gesture she always did when she meant  _ listen, this is important,  _ she’d kissed his forehead and smiled through her building tears and murmured, “Pip, the world deserves to know you. It deserves to hear you.”

Pip had promised then to make her proud and he felt like he was making a good attempt, thanks to the wavering, shifting path he’d chosen back when he was eighteen, the one that ran across a whole continent.

And, of course, thanks to Georges. Though Pip would never have words for everything the man he loved, the man who’d made him brave, had done for him, no matter how many new places he visited. He was just going to have to rely on the kisses he pressed against his boyfriend’s hairline when he came back from his morning run to wake him up, the way he playfully slipped his hands under the waistband of Georges’ shorts whenever he pressed his front to perfectly match the curve of his back like two carefully moulded puzzle pieces fitting just right, the way he would sing for him on the evenings when he was in the mood, while Georges lazily played guitar, his long fingers dancing and flexing effortlessly to coax almost any song Pip could think of out of the battered aging instrument, their movement and careless, effortless skill until he wanted them inside him so much he couldn’t think and forgot the lyrics he was supposed to be singing.

When even Pip’s vast, almost ethereal command of words failed to describe some things, like the depth and metier of his love for the tall French boy who’d taken his hand and found him a life where he felt more like himself than he ever had, where he  _ liked  _ being himself more than he ever had. Some things would just have to speak for themselves.

As much as he adored travelling, seeing the world with Georges, relying on little more than a handful of shirts and a single pair of jeans, a pocketful of euros, their art and their love, he had to admit to the moments he really, sincerely missed home.

It was strange that now was one of those times however, less than an hour before the opening of his Georges’ first proper art show, something he’d been dreaming of since he’d decided he wanted to make a living as a painter, a whole exhibition right in the heart of one of the most respected art galleries in Paris, a place where he and Pip had been lots of times on dates, where Georges had stroked the marble columns outside the foyer, taken deep lungsful of the clean climate controlled air and promised with starry eyes that one day, a painting with his name would be hanging there. And now there were going to be twenty, in their own room, all his best work, years of studying and late nights squinting in the low light at easels taller than even Georges himself, of picking himself up when things didn’t go right and colours wouldn’t mix and people at parties gave him That Look when he said he wanted to be a professional artist, hanging these for the best of Paris to come and gaze at and see Georges’ brilliance as much as Pip did. Since the morning Georges had got the email, dragged his lover out of the shower to show him, sobbed with happiness in his arms, all of this had felt like some dream, the apex of everything they’d been working towards. Payback for every time the heating had gone out and they hadn’t had the money that week to fix it, every evening eating dry, slightly stale cereal out of the box because Pip’s paycheque for his part time job as a waiter at the café across the street didn’t come in for another week, every winter of pushing their bed (still without a frame after the last one had broken during some…extracurricular activities, Pip was absolutely  _ not  _ having another awkward conversation with the guy at the store asking how the wood had splintered into quite that many pieces) across the room to be closer to the bonfire of their discarded notebook pages and spare posters advertising their shows. All that felt worth it.

So why did Pip suddenly feel like he’d sell his right foot to be back at home? What was wrong with him?

For Philip and Georges, home was a tiny apartment sitting rather lopsided on top of a flower shop on the outskirts of Paris, like a rather moth-eaten hat perched rakishly on the bouffant of a debonair old lady. The floorboards and the pipes seemed to get together to form an amateur jazz band after dark, there was a good chance that the oven didn’t even work, given that they never used it; why would they, when there were six amazing restaurants all within walking distance? Their furniture, what little they had, somehow clashed and matched at the same time, a cacophony of different patterns and textures that somehow synthesised into a general oaky red colour that always made Pip feel safe and protected, held. The stairs were uneven and splintered so walking up them drunk (as Pip and Georges often did) was tantamount to doing a particularly dangerous obstacle course with a blindfold on. The paint on the windowsill was so chipped neither of them were really sure what colour they’d been in the first place, the glass in the windows rattled so much when the wind picked up that Philip sometimes jolted awake, still sort of dreaming, scared that the whole place was coming down around them, the wallpaper was some kind of psychedelic repeating pattern that could leave the boys feeling a little seasick sometimes. Especially on the (not so) rare occasions they spent entire weekends smoking joints and eating pastries, playing gentle, lilting music on the frankly insanely huge gramophone Georges had pulled from the antique store nearby, making lazy, greedy, grasping love on every flat surface in the apartment like they were never, ever going to willingly be two separate bodies again.

The place was sparse, wonky, all at odd angles and ill fitting, clashing colours and mismatched fabrics, holes in the flowing lace curtains, mugs that were all nicked and stained with paint from being used by Georges to wash his brushes, ink stains on the desk and puddles of dried wax from Pip’s all nighters working out a particularly knotty poem, piles of laundry still not done, barely lived in and slightly strange, the kind of place you’d immediately guess two starving artists lived in when they weren’t couch surfing across Europe.

But it was home. It was their home, the place they’d built for themselves. It was the smell of lavender and lily pollen and roses drifting up from the flower shop when the day was warm or a new delivery came in, making them both sleepy and feeling like they were lying in a meadow. It was dancing together across the wooden floors in various stages of undress whenever a song they liked came on the gramophone or the tinny, battered radio covered in band stickers that hung off the towel rack. It was their cat, Matisse, waving her black feather duster of a tail under Philip’s nose to get his attention, walking in Georges’ paints and tracking sky blue or yellow ochre paw prints across the apartment, with her one remaining ear and one cloudy, useless eye and funny, lopsided way of walking that meant she fell over every time she sneezed, purring lovingly as she spread-eagled across their laps. It was wearing Georges’ enormous, baggy sweaters that came down around Philip’s knees, it was painting each other’s nails, it was kisses and caresses and falling asleep in each other’s arms and Georges sketching Pip when he had just woken up because that was when he looked most beautiful, it was Pip writing down his most achingly lovely scraps of poetry right after sex, having to use Georges’ back as a rest for his paper. It was saying  _ I love you  _ over and over at every opportunity because it was true and always would be true and that was what kept them going.

It was where Philip wanted to be right now, not here, leaning against the wall in an eerily empty art gallery waiting for the opening party to start, pulling at the slightly too tight collar of his shirt, scuffing his dress shoes against the floor. What was up with him? After waiting so long for this night, what it represented for Georges and his work, why was the part of him he never really felt like he could control being so goddamn difficult?

He sighed a little, hoping the sound echoing through the darkened, empty foyer would give a sense of finality, a bookend to this bad mood. He straightened up and smoothed down his tie, tugging his jacket so it sat more smoothly around his hips, trying in vain to neaten the wild tangle of his hair back into its bun. He was proud of his Georges, this was his big night and he wasn’t about to spend it being sour.

Though he wasn’t the only one acting strange.

Georges was rarely anything but relaxed and calm and placid, one of those people Pip admired for the fact that they always seemed so content, hardly ever getting worked up or bent out of shape or restless the way he did at the slightest little hiccup. Who seemed blessed with this kind of foresight, an unshakeable faith that things were always going to work out fine and, if they weren’t okay right now, they soon would be. It was one part of the many reasons Pip loved his boyfriend; he could sometimes infect him with his easy calmness, putting his hands on either side of his head, his warm brown eyes finding his, pressing their chests together so Pip could feel the steady pulse of his heartbeat, telling him that there was no need to worry, he was his and he loved him, the world was still turning, everything would be okay. Philip’s restless, anxious heart had been looking for that kind of peace for a very long time.

But tonight, ever since they’d left their hotel, Pip was starting to wonder if the two of them hadn’t somehow swapped personalities. His boyfriend had been acting odd all day, bouncing his leg- something he never did- messing with his hair, fidgeting nervously, fretting over every last detail, nearly losing his mind when their taxi was five minutes late despite the fact that they were arriving at the gallery an hour early anyway, given that it was his name on the door and all. And as soon as they’d arrived, he’d shot off into the building with some hurried, obviously thin excuse that he needed to check on a last few things , could mon chou wait here, it’d just take two minutes, he wanted to make sure everything was perfect before he saw it? Apparently forgetting that Philip had been with him just last week arranging the paintings, he’d been the one who suggested that maybe the abstract of the Lafayette family home should go against the back wall, so it was the first thing people saw when they turned the corner and they’d feel immediately transported to the rolling green expanses of Georges’ world, the place he’d grew up, the place the two of them had fallen in love. But apparently he needed two more minutes?

And twenty minutes later, Pip was still waiting, daydreaming about going home and curling up with some of the really good tomato soup the kind old ladies who ran the café across the street made for them, his cat and his boyfriend. Or anywhere, really, as long as he got his Georges back.

Sure, he could understand that he was a little nervous, a lot had been riding on this, a lot proven by what he’d achieved here, though most of it was to Georges himself, imaginary disappointments at the life choices he’d made to wipe away by becoming a recognized artist. Philip and Georges both knew that their parents supported what they did, were endlessly proud of what they created with each other. But the only son of the Marquis de Lafayette had some doubts in his chest that weren’t going to go away as easily as he’d like to believe, not when he got so many daily reminders that he was living a life very, very different from what history and tradition demanded of him. And maybe every step closer he took, every time people could walk in to a gallery like this one and see his work, those voices would get a little quieter.

But surely the nerves had been for before that email arrived congratulating Georges, telling him that one of the best galleries in the community wanted to show his work after he’d sent them his portfolio (after weeks and weeks of Pip gently pressing him, cajoling him, encouraging him). The previews were glowing, the pieces he’d chosen were some of Philip’s favourites, hard work and hard nights were finally paying off. Tonight’s party was just about celebration, reward, taking a breath.

Or at least it was supposed to be. Pip frowned as he paced across the foyer, remarking with a creeping shiver how places built specifically to be full of people became such a void as soon as they were empty. How they became filled instead with a sense of mildly nauseating wrongness once they became the total opposite of what they were supposed to be.

A little like a certain artist boyfriend who really needed a drink or to get laid, at least. Well, the latter would have to wait until they got back to the hotel but at least in an hour, there would be expensive wine and champagne to take care of the former. Fancy galas like this did have their perks.

One of those being getting to see Georges dressed up. Pip’s eyes were pulled upwards by the sound of someone else’s boot heels rapping against the tiled floor, echoing and reverberating around the space. Almost immediately, his mouth curved upwards in an appreciative smile, his bad mood recoiled, unable to stand against seeing Georges coming towards him.

Some of his younger sister Ginnie’s fashion sense had rubbed off on Georges over the years, much to her sincere relief (she was still working on Philip, insisting that he was messing up all her pictures of them), he was dressed impeccably, a tight suit inlaid with embroidered flowers, his thin dreadlocks pulled back and tied away from his sharply angled face with a ribbon, looking so effortlessly beautiful, like he wasn’t even aware of the affect he had on Pip. As he strode towards him in the low light,  _ that  _ smile on his face, he conjured up images in Philip’s mind of personifications of the moon, of a flower adorned Hades come for his Persephone, of strength and safety. He noticed he still had that flower in his buttonhole, the one Pip had plucked from a shrub as they’d waited for their taxi and tucked in there, saying that it matched his eyes perfectly earning a smile.

He loved him so much. 

“Two minutes, you said,” Pip called, playfully accusatory, what sounded like another hundred Pip’s asking the same teasing question as it echoed through the space between them, “Don’t think you can get away with keeping me waiting just because you look hot.”

“I am very sorry,” Georges answered smoothly, though he was grinning like a cat as his long, purposeful strides closed the gap, his large yet delicate hands came to cup Philip’s face, thumbs brushing his cheekbones where the freckles were densest, “And don’t play. You love it when I keep you waiting.”

Philip reddened considerably, “Not in everyday contexts…”

Georges gave a low chuckle that Pip could feel the vibrations of through his boyfriend’s palms before something flickered behind his eyes, what looked like an errant thought remembered, and the mood he’d been in all night resurfaced, ruining the calm surface of his expression, “I am sorry. I just had to…some things needed…um, the lighting…”

Philip gently placed his palms against Georges’ chest, a simple gesture that brought his nervous chatter to a stop. He raised up on his tiptoes to press a kiss against Georges’ cheek, “It’s okay, don’t worry about it. This is your night, you’re allowed to be a little nervous.”

Georges softened, a little more than he normally would for one of Philip’s usual affectionate gestures that he handed out freely and willingly, looking as if his boyfriend had just given a Shakespearean soliloquy declaring his undying and eternal love rather than just a quick kiss, “Thank you, mon chou. This night is…really important to me.”

Pip smiled crookedly, rapping his fingertips against Georges’ collarbone, “I know, baby, I know. It’s gonna go great, you’ll see, everyone’s going to know just how amazing you are by the end of this. Just like me!”

Georges snorted, rubbing the back of his neck coyly but he stood a little straighter once his lover’s words sank in, “Come on…shameless flatterer…”

“Damn right,” Pip smirked, a classic Hamilton grin on his face until it flowed into something tender, something gentle, “You know whatever happens tonight, I’m stupidly, crazily, insanely proud of you, right?”

Georges’ lower lip wobbled slightly until he had to bite down on it, ever the overemotional Lafayette Philip adored, “I do. I did. But thanks for saying it, all the same.”

“You’re welcome, you big goofball,” Pip giggled, not wanting tonight to get too emotional too fast or they’d both start crying and be worse than useless, “Now come on, am I allowed to see it now?”

“Yeah,” Georges nodded after a deep breath, “Come and see.”

 

Philip had lost count of the amount of times he’d found himself in a situation just like this. All museums and galleries and such were the same species, he’d realised, with the same feel to them, the same scent, the same aura of calm and itch they sparked in his chest to see everything, know everything, soak in every fact and oddity and date all laid out for him to devour. They all held the same chance to feel so connected, to history, to the rest of the world, to the rest of nature. To come away knowing more than you did when you went in, to feel like you’d grown a little. Philip had always adored that feeling, there was a reason he knew the Natural History Museum over in New York like the back of his hand, had done since he was five, a reason the boys’ first date was to a tiny independent art gallery near the Lafayette house, a reason he and Georges always made a point of finding a museum whatever corner of the continent they found themselves in, walking through it with their hands tightly clasped, taking their time and absorbing everything, learning together. No matter how far they were from their bed, how long it had been since they petted their kitten, since they’d shared a glass of dangerously strong coffee on their balcony, they’d feel like they’d found something familiar, a piece of home. A part of themselves.

Pip smiled and wound his arm around Georges’ waist as they walked through the empty exhibition rooms, dark except for just the lights illuminating each piece, making the modern sculpture pieces look like sacred totems of some beautiful, slightly alien culture, the paintings look like windows to other worlds, the whole place feel so eerily beautiful. They could go to a million different museums and Pip would still want to go to a million more.

He laughed delightedly when they came to the room that had Georges’ generous handful of names etched into the wall, “Look, they managed to fit them all on!”

“Shut up,” Georges smirked, shoving him lightly, “Some of us are cursed with fathers that have a weird obsession with giving everything six names.”

Philip snorted, “Well, forgive me, but I’d rather die than call my boyfriend the same name as my dad’s boss…whose basically my grandpa…”

“You’re forgiven,” he answered quickly, shaking his head, playfully rueful, “Just Georges is fine.”

“As if you could ever be  _ just  _ anything…” Philip laughed as he took his boyfriend’s hands in his own, pulling him past the towering glass doors and into his exhibit, “I mean, look at this!”

Philip had seen these paintings all before, they’d been living in his apartment, taking up floor space, tripping him up on the way back from the bathroom, occupying his boyfriend’s attention at times he would rather have had it all to himself. But there was no denying they were beautiful, he’d thought it then, even with his bruised shins and ego, and it was only more apparent now in the stark, triumphant light of the gallery. He’d seen all these unfamiliar interpretations of familiar places, these collections of shapes and colours that somehow evoked exactly what Pip felt when he ran his fingers through Georges’ hair, these carefully inked landscapes that mimicked perfectly but were somehow even more beautiful than the originals he’d actually stood in amongst, he’d seen them taking shape under Georges’ hands, over long nights and lazy weekends. Each one held not just what paint or chalk or charcoal or printed card was on the canvas, for Philip there were memories lifting each one beyond what was only physically there.

There was their first night in their own place, in the charcoal sketch of the view from their balcony, when Pip had burst into tears without really knowing why when it first sunk in that he could see the skeletal shadow of the Eiffel Tower from their apartment and Georges had rocked him and kissed the tears from his cheeks, tenderly bemused. There was their first anniversary, when they’d driven out to the countryside, drank and smoked and made out under the stars and Georges had commented warmly that he’d never seen the sky look so beautiful. There was the bouquet of flowers Georges had gone and gotten for Pip the time he was sick, rendered in achingly beautiful pastels. There was their cat, their grumpy and beloved Matisse, immortalised in her favourite place on the back of the sofa. There was the sunlight that came in through their windows at just the right time on just the right day in the spring, there was their relationship, their lives together put together like some wonderful scrapbook.

“It looks pretty good, doesn’t it?” Georges hummed, hopefully, his eyes fixed not on the art but on Philip’s face as he took it all in.

“Pretty good?” Pip yelped in mock indignance, eyes wide and bright with the wonder and excitement Georges found so endearing, whirling out of his grip and around the space, arms out and hair flying, “This is unbelievable! I’m sleeping with the best artist in the frickin’ universe!”

“And I’m sleeping with the biggest idiot!” Georges laughed, going bright red, “Behave!”

“Behave yourself! Wait…” Pip suddenly ground to a halt, almost toppling right over onto his ass as something caught his eye, something that hadn’t been here last week when he and Georges were standing on stepladders and risking their necks, deciding what would go where to give the best impression, “What’s those?”

There were small white cards next to each piece, ones other to the title cards put there by the museum. These were all handwritten, a script Philip knew well and immediately because it was  _ his. _ When he went closer, feeling Georges’ warm, knowing gaze at his back, he saw that each one was a poem of his, something he’d written, something stolen from his notebook. Most of them, he hadn’t even published yet. And each one perfectly tied to the artwork it, like the emotions Georges said in pictures, he said in metaphors, working together perfectly, on the same wavelength exactly even with two completely different mediums, on the same path, understanding each other even when what was being described was so ethereal.

A lot like Philip and Georges.

He was so lost in wandering around the room, taking in every poem and every piece in tandem, he wasn’t aware of the minutes slipping by until Georges’ hand came to rest on his shoulder.

“Sorry I kept it from you but I though the surprise would be nicer?” he murmured hopefully, “Do you mind? I can take them down before we open if you don’t like it but I thought just for us…”

“Don’t you dare,” Philip breathed, moving in a sudden rush after being paralysed with emotion, throwing his arms around Georges’ neck even when that left him dangling off the floor, “I love it! I can’t believe you did this for me, this was supposed to be…hey!”

He suddenly jerked out of his arms, smacking him on the shoulder, shock and surprise making his limbs a little disconnected from his brain, acting of their own accord or, at least, to the whims of the electricity running through them, “This was supposed to be  _ your  _ night! Your big break! You didn’t have to…you shouldn’t have…”

“Hey, hey,” Georges chuckled, catching his fists, silencing him with a kiss to the forehead, “I wanted to. They asked me to put a little bit about what inspired me with each piece and, well…my answer for each one was the same. You. So, I simplified things.”

Philip flushed, so much so that his multitudes of freckles disappeared in the rosy tide across his face, so shaken that all the great poet could manage was a soft, “Oh. That’s…that’s okay then…”

Georges grinned, suddenly taking a deep breath like a man on the edge of a bungee jump, “Um, the poems aren’t the only new thing I added tonight while you weren’t looking.”

“Huh?” Pip tilted his head like a confused puppy, “You changed something else?”

“For the better,” Georges insisted hurriedly, “Well, I hope…here, just come see it.”

“Oh? Is this what’s been putting ants in your pants all night?” Pip mused as Georges took him to turn the corner of the L shaped gallery room.

“My what now!?” Georges said in alarm, looking down at his trousers.

“Oh, no, it’s an expression,” Pip smiled a little, “Never mind.” They still had their hiccups, with four languages between them.

The tall French boy rolled his eyes, swallowing hard just before he let Pip turn the corner and see whatever it was that had occupied half of his brain function that night, “Just... just look. Tell me what you think.”

Philip had what he thought prepared and packaged and ready to go, something supportive and gushing and glowing, what could Georges possibly have done that he wouldn’t adore? After turning his first exhibition into something joint, a living expression of their love, what could be left?

But once Philip saw exactly what he’d done, the words dissipated when they were halfway out of his mouth as his eyes snapped open and his jaw slackened until it hit his chest. Up on the wall was an enormous painting he’d never seen before, not once, and he remembered every single one of his boyfriend’s paintings, even the ones that got junked. And if he’d seen this one before, he was damn sure he’d remember it.

It was of the two of them, on their backs and gazing at each other, in amongst wildflowers so dense the grass was barely visible, until they looked like they were physically holding them up, weaving into Georges’ hair and around their joined hands, making them dryads, something luminous, something otherworldly. Georges had never painted himself before, recoiled at the idea. But now, Philip couldn’t understand why. It was as if he’d painted not what was in the mirror but who Philip had always seen when he looked at the young man who’d stolen his heart, someone achingly beautiful, strong, wise, someone who looked as if he could hang the sun in the sky. Someone who could take Philip’s hand, tell him he was good and brave and talented and worth the effort and he’d actually believe him. The painted Philip was carefully, lovingly done, though he’d seen himself in his lover’s work more times than he could count, he always looked beautiful when seen through Georges’ eyes.

But seeing the two of them together, looking like they belonged that way, had always belonged that way, Philip just couldn’t breathe.

“Oh…oh god, baby, it’s amazing…” Philip croaked, hating that he couldn’t think of anything more than that though the tears sliding down his face in long diamond tracks across his sunset skin probably took over sufficiently where his brain failed.

“Huh?” Georges made a show of shuffling his fee, looking down, “The painting? I mean, it’s pretty good, I’m proud of it. But what I really wanted your opinion on was the title.”

“The…what…” Pip dragged his sleeve over his streaming eyes, vaguely glad somewhere in the back of his mind that Ginnie wasn’t around to slap him, moving closer to the neatly printed card by the frame, only one this time, no poem…

“Read it out loud?” he heard Georges ask gently.

“Uh, okay? I guess…” Philip frowned in confusion, not entirely sure where he was going with this. Georges always came up with great titles, Pip was the one who sucked at it and had a million poems titled just with numbers.

And then he understood.

“Will You…Will You Marry Me…”

When Philip turned, Georges was down on one knee, ring in hand, tears in his own eyes to match Philip’s. Clearly there was one thing he was willing to spend his family’s money on; the ring was beautiful. 

Not a single word passed between the two of them, just a frantic nod, a hug that knocked Georges right off his knees, a kiss that tasted of salt and a future. One with more travelling, more new stars, more nights spend lying on cool grass, the heavy, cream thick scent of joint smoke, their arms around each other, more cities and languages to muddle their way through. More days of taking their home with them wherever they went but always being so relieved when they found themselves back in their leaking, draughty apartment. More nights trading sleep for making love until there were tears in their eyes and the sweetest ache in their muscles. More whispered declarations of love and foreheads resting against each other and hands wandering and mapping and still discovering new things. And so many teasing jabs back and forth, so many breathless, sighing exclamations at the sight of each other, so many murmurs and yelps and laughs and whispers.

But, for now, there were no words. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, if you liked this, please consider a comment, a pop over to my Tumblr my-dearesteliza to tell me what you liked or, if you thought it was really, really good, a small donation to my ko-fi!


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